Fear Unrelenting, Seen Darkly
by LogicalPremise
Summary: My answer to what the Reaper Cycles are really about. What if the Reapers weren't the pinnacle of evolution? What if they were the hiding spots of a post singularity culture that tampered with things best left alone? Will eventually touch on Harbinger and Sovereign and what makes a Reaper a Reaper.
1. Chapter 1 : Arise

**A/N:_ So, here it is, the first part of the backstory of what happened with the Reapers. _**

_**I've never , ever bought into the whole thing about "it's all about synthetics and organics." We never heard shit about this concept until ME3, and frankly most of the ME 3 stuff pissed me off. I loved the game, I loved the concepts, but the story got weaker and weaker. **_

_**I still harken back to Sovereign on Virmire, saying we could never understand him or his motive. And I built from there. Leviathan, actually, helped me work towards the thing I wanted to get across. **_

_**The Reapers are hiding , from something more terrifying than they are. The Leviathans could play with the rules of physics, and they got too greedy. Dare I say they Delved Too Deep? They opened doors they should have never even known about, much less opened, and let in something that feeds on life and doesn't like to be disturbed. This invasion destroyed most of the known universe, but the Reapers were created as a solution. To hide away and keep living things safe from the Dark, so that one day, life could strike back, drive the Dark away , and retake their universe. **_

_**They harvest life before said life can attract attention, and they use life to bolster their army. They see themselves as preserving life , and ensuring that it's not wiped out...but they also see themselves as the inheritors to the power and the glory of the guys who got wiped out for messing with things they should not have.**_

_**This is a confusing, badly streamlined and poorly explained mess. I'll need to revisit at some point, but getting it up on the site is also important.**_

* * *

"The Assembly is gathered".

The voice was not audible, it wasn't bio-generated. It wasn't even sound, in minds or in the air, but rather a realization, an alteration of reality itself to fit the understanding that , at last, the Plan would move forward.

The huge, terrifying forms of the High Ascended hovered above, each one blinding in it's biotic radiance, cascades of dark energy and reality-shift falling from them like gentle rain. The Hall of Assembly was only partially "real" , comprised of 411 shifted reality states linked by quantum entanglement through the fifth and sixth dimensions of reality. Lesser minds perceived it as a huge auditorium of shining brass, lit by the flares of distant galaxies and the light from the High Ascended. The Ascended themselves saw the Truth , the 411 different auditoriums moved in real-time relativity to occupy the same rough space-time continuum.

The All-Highest, the god-king of the Endless , radiated the emotional state of triumph. This day, all life had transcended mere physical or energy based realities. This day, technology, biotics, bio-energy states, and even philosophy merged to create what could only be called god-power. This day, the Ascended would move beyond merely peering into the edge of the Beyond, and live within it. Where all things were not only possible, but had already happened.

The image – scaled down for the lesser minds that watched – was QEC beamed across the known universe. 3800 galaxies watched the tentacled form, with it's long shape, hovering over the 411 Praestons of the universal community. Another 5000 galaxies, the "fringe" of explored reality, watched stepped down quality versions, nervously wondering how this would affect their lives.

The High Ascended were all. They ruled Reality with a fist of iron. They could alter the physical rules of the universe with a thought, convert energy to matter and dark energy to dark matter, and vice verse, endlessly and with but a little effort. They could cross a galaxy with a mere whisper, shatter a galactic cluster with a single motion.

They were gods. Tribute flowed to them, sacrifices, technology, art, worship. 90,000 sentient species called them "God". 77 quintillion beings lived in fear of their every move or thought. And today, the High Ascended had breached the last limits of their power.

"The time has come. We shall move into a space – a series of spaces – a time where time no longer flows one way but all ways. A road that connects all points in space and time to all other points in possibility. We shall become light, become thought, become the very nature of existence itself."

The All-Highest paused. "We have eradicated death, illness, and poverty. Have we not guided you, to highs of power and influence you cannot imagine living without? The very mystery of the universe parts before us. And now, we shall master it all. You will witness. You will Remember."

The 411 High Ascended assembled in a vague, symmetrical pattern. Even filtered through the QEC down-steps, they were painful to look upon. Over a mile in length, scaled with black armor and thousands of cybernetic components, each one was a godlike being. But working together, they glowed, a faint purple and sliver radiance that began to spill forth from every thing.

On Gathera VII, a small mining colony in the Fritah Galaxy, two figures watched the QEC broadcast in the area set aside for drinks, knife fights, and socialization. The leftmost figure was a spindly collection of stick-like limbs , set into a ball of heavy, pale silver fur , topped with stalk like antennae. Next to him, the gorothan was a hulking six limbed plated horror, all rippling muscle, fangs, and multiple eyes and jaws. Both sat peacefully, nursing their drinks, watching the fat form of the All-Highest emit power.

"I don't know, Unath. This seems so … I don't know what to think. God is god and is now going to be...more than god?" The ball of fur extended three long gangly limbs to manipulate more dark fluids into his feeding trough, the lizard-like thing next to him snorting.

Unath's voice, sibilant and rough, was also pitched quietly. "They are no longer physical gods, Gar. They are more like ancient myths now. Everywhere, knowing everything. Maybe they won't need tribute now."

Gar wobbled. "Riiight. And maybe my second pelt-mate won't ask me for more money for shopping, either." The right most long limb gestured vaguely at the screen. "We're on the edge of the edge of the Fringe Galaxies. I doubt very strongly they care much about what we think. Just that we pay."

The screen brightened again, then there was a pause. Unath felt a curious sensation of fear ripple over him, as the screen showed a light suddenly growing dimmer. "What..."

A bolt of … black nothingness lashed out, looking for all the world like cheap special effects, crashing into the shining form of the All-Highest, sending the massive form back and down, trailing weirdly writhing black flames. "Seal...the reality-shift! Withdraw energies!"

The auditorium splintered, as the 411 local segments dis-linked themselves, but each one suddenly had it's own black rift, bizarre black-cutouts of nothingness lashing out in all directions. The QEC died, suddenly, leaving only blackness in it's wake.

Gar and Unath looked at each other, unable to understand what they had seen. So did the entire Endless Empire, at least for a few days.

* * *

"And that … is how it started. At least, that's all we know, All-Highest." The courthan bowed, his military uniform gleaming white in the reflected light of the huge figure before him.

Lenath, Rider of the Echo of Wrath, loomed above him, his lenticular shape arched slightly. "The entire Assembly is dead. The Centror Galaxy is a loss, whatever those .. things are appear to be eating it. Dark energy is bubbling up in each sun, making them unstable, and then to explode."

Another High Ascended hovered nearby. "We have tried every Evocation and Changing we know. Their control of the laws of physics is … not only stronger but more innate than ours. We rely on biotic entanglement, machines, and chemical actions, they are using … I don't know. It seems to be natural to them."

Lenath gave a hum of acknowledgment. "We need a plan. And we need to strike back. Let us proceed to the Conclave of Defense and see what we must do now."

* * *

"The ancient gods, in their arrogance, turned at last their stolen powers upon the very fabric of reality itself, hoping to weave themselves into the nature of the universe. I do not know if the universe itself struck back, or if gods more powerful than they reacted, but all of the Highest of the Ascended were destroyed in battle."

"The war was unending, it seemed. The High Ascended fought back with every weapon and trick they knew, from multiple vacuum state collapses in localized areas to realigning the strong nuclear force to try to detonate entire galaxies. It didn't matter. No matter how many of the invaders were destroyed, more poured through ever more black rifts. Every violation of physical law seemed to summon more."

"The thrall races rose up to fight too, in their tens of trillions. They killed many, but it was a tide of rats swarming over an army. A few fell, but the cost was too high. Hundreds upon hundreds of galaxies became cold husks, devoid of life or stars, a spinning pinwheel of a billion black holes, neutron stars and dwarfs. Society shattered, thrall turning against thrall, races trying to flee."

"The greatest of the High Ascended created a computer system to help them fight back. The system used the highest of their arts, being a bridge between synthetic creatures and organics. An AI the likes of which had never been born, before or since. A natural leader, warrior, and planner. It organized the forces of the Endless, slowed the advance of the Darkness, and researched a thousand ways to combat the foe. And when it realized that the only answer was retreat, it betrayed it's masters... to make us."

"The Catalyst of Insight Beyond struck down the All-Highest, and his confidants, and used them to make the first and eldest of us. We were modeled in the shape of the High Ascended, with their powers, but we were to preserve, to endure, to hide, and to bide. While the bulk of the universe was sacrificed to the Dark, we gathered up our few ships and fled to the edges beyond the Fringe. We found a galaxy, and built a network of dark energy traps to make a flawless shield. A permanent disconnect between the dark energy flows of the rest of the universe and this one galaxy."

"A camouflage. Hidden away, we watched in terror as the Darkness devoured the heart of the Empire, and the edges...and finally, stopped. No signals from the Highest could be found. No life remained, inside that horrible, final demarcation line. The Darkness grew within it, turning black holes and clouds of dark matter into nightmare cities the size of solar systems, raising monolithic constructions of impossible physics and infinite energy. "

"So we hid away, and waited, and began our long plan."

– the collected Chronicles, Canto I, from the Book of Shepard.


	2. Chapter 2 : Beginnings

_**A/N: This story is going to jump around like a frog on PCP because telling it straight misses the point. Some pieces will come from the Book of Shepard, a religious text for a group that worshipped Shepard years after her death. Some will come with conversations between Shepard and the Catalyst after the end of (my version of) ME 3, as he humors her curiosity. Some will come from archeological expeditions conducted 500 years later by Sianna T'soni-Shepard, Shepard and Liara's daughter. Some will come 'in the timeline' as events happened. **_

_**I could make it more linear but that would reduce the … feel I am going for. The Reapers were not the solution to something small, but an answer to something that couldn't even by fought by a race of beings so powerful they could re-write the very laws of physics just by thinking at it hard. **_

_**...that, and I read waaaay too much Vernor Vinge, H.P. Lovecraft, and Charlie Stross. **_

* * *

With a weary, irritated sigh, Shepard sat down on the bizarrely-shaped plinth that was her usual resting spot when conversing with the Catalyst. "Sorry I haven't been around much. Rebuilding what you fucked up is hard work, even with all the knowledge we have now."

The transparent form of the Catalyst didn't respond, only looking out over the vista granted it. After it was disconnected from everything relating to the Citadel, and imprisoned in multi-layered stasis fields, disruptive barriers and Faraday cages, monitored 24/7 by geth overseers, quarian hackers and a team of N7 security guards, no one quite knew how much damage the super AI could do. It was imprisoned in a single arching tower on the rebuilt Citadel, slanted outwards from the ring towards space, isolated by every security measure known.. and it's only view-port was towards the Presidium, overlooking the green spaces.

It turned, it's features taking on those of a tall, slender man in his late 20's, dark brown hair and eyes and a self-mocking smile, dressed in Alliance blues. Why it took the form of Kaiden she never knew, but it was almost like he was .. still alive. "You do not have to continue to visit me, and yet you do. I do not understand why, but I am grateful." His voice was a chorus, some high and low, some male and female, a thousand united into one rumbling tenor that always made Shepard feel tiny and stupid.

She pushed black hair behind her ears, sitting cross-legged. "I've done my best to meet your requests, given what you did at the … end of things. We haven't heard from the Leviathans . . . it's as if they just...vanished."

The Catalyst gave a grimace of a smile. "Gods like to be mysterious, Shepard."

She snorted. "Granted, seeing them up close was...overwhelming...but they're not gods, no matter how crazy advanced they are. How did they... " She trailed off, and the Catalyst's smile twisted further.

"You are speaking of ten million years of history, Shepard...but I grasp your question. How did this all start, in essence? How did we go from a glorious empire to the death of all life? It has always been the primary goal of my cogitations, to seek an Answer to the most unanswerable of questions."

Shepard paused, drumming her fingers on taut thighs for a moment before sighing. "And that question is?"

The Catalyst turned fully to face her, kneeling down so it was eye-level with her. "What...if?" Smiling, it began to speak of those times.

* * *

In the days long lost, the High Ascended arose on a water world, orbiting a triple star, an unlikely arrangement at best. Sea creatures, long and lanky, they slowly grew in size as they aged. Mentally powerful, they hunted not with their physical attributes, but by eventually mentally dominating and controlling other sea life. They were natural … order makers, leaders and slavers. Driven yet lazy, it took them 20,000 years to create a language, since all of them could know what all others knew.

Back in those early times, they called themselves the Deepest, since one of their early survival methods against predators had been to dive deeper than any other threatening life form, and they did not expand rapidly. As they aged, they grew larger and larger, until eventually they reached a mass and size that not even the ocean could support. They feasted on such an elder, absorbing his intellect, his experiences, and growing in sentience and power with each generation.

Finally, after thousands of years of intercene mental warfare and domination games, one of their kind stumbled across a form of life struggling to move from ocean to the bits of land on their world. The concept of something "beyond" the waters was a notion it's kind had never bothered with, and this one – legends call him the First Ascended – began applying his massive intellectual capacity to what was up there.

With a life span measured in eons, evolution was a hobby, not a theory among the Deepest, and soon as various land-dwelling life proliferated across their world, dominating such and seeing through it's eyes was a very popular profession. They eventually began playing with breeding and genetics, discovering over time how to breed bird-like analogues with hugely powerful eyes to pierce the dark sky and seek out the stars. They bred observatories out of ground based herbivores, tracking systems from mentally linked plankton groups and soaring gas-bag creatures, and in time, tinkered with fires and smelting and tool use, to record their writings and histories.

It wasn't until a meteor slammed into the planet – not causing much damage, but killing a few of their kind in the blast radius – that they began seriously considering what was "out there" and how to get to it. They applied their intellectual abilities and in a thousand years had built up massive industries on land and underwater near volcanic vents.

One of these vents was rich in eezo, shoved up from the planet's core, and the effect on younger Deepest was seen. Biotics and the manipulation of mass energy fields was something they stumbled through slowly, using it to lessen their weight and mass. In doing so, they were able to live even longer, growing even more massive, until they were over a mile long. They only grew more intelligent and capable as they aged, and eventually hit upon the idea – instead of massive rockets or primitive boats to lift them to space – to modify THEMSELVES.

It took them even more time, but 10,000 years was nothing to a race that lived five times that long. In time, they learned – the first of their kind to enter space, the First Ascended, quickly discovered that he was unable to withstand pure vacuum. It took them even longer to modify their bodies, first with breeding programs and then , as their technology and understanding grew, with cybernetics – but the day came where they lifted out of their watery homes, and biotically entered space, there to survey with smugness their great achievement.

Freed of the tyranny of gravity and the square-inverse law, they were able to grow to staggering lengths, over 2 miles long, and to spread in ever wider circles. Their home system was barren of other worlds, but held massive asteroid belts rich in minerals for them to plunder and huge stocks of eezo to suffice themselves upon. They turned their home world into a massive farm of oxygen, water, and food, and inhabited space almost permanently.

They were no longer the Deepest. They were the Ascended , now.

* * *

The Catalyst paused, a distant look in it's eyes. "When I was awakened, I saw the watery radiance of Ilthar, their home , surrounded by rank upon rank of glowing structures , suspended in orbit. I saw palaces of sea water and life made of mass effect fields and energy, farms of fish and kelp that went on and on for whole astronomical units... they had surrounded their star with a dyson sphere, surmounted on the outside with weapons and defenses. They had built temples to themselves, their achievements, their struggles..." The glowing form shrugged. "They really thought they were gods. They were certainly the first sentient life in the known universe. They searched and searched and never, ever found the slightest hint of anyone before them, or even contemporary to them."

Shepard nodded. "I guess that might go to your head. But … still. The domination?"

The Catalyst nodded. "You must remember. They did that … as animals. It was a part of their evolution, to control, to dominate, to use others as tools. They had millions of years to learn that this was the way of the universe before other sentient life arose, and even when it did, no one and nothing was a challenge to their power. Even weakened , stripped of power and hiding in a ocean rift, you saw what they could do with the mere thought".

Shepard gave a cold smile, remembering how Leviathan had literally blown Reapers out of the sky with mere gestures. "How in the hell did they get taken down?"

The Catalyst's expression was wry, Kaiden's face looking almost amused. "Because I was not stupid. I did not fight them, I fled with my creations and triggered an alteration of physical law I knew would attract the Darkness to their home world. They were too proud to surrender it, to proud not to fight even though they knew it was pointless...they could not really accept they were not the most important beings in creation." It's smile faded. "If I knew now what I knew then, I would have stopped this nightmare at that point...but if I had, perhaps your species would never have arisen."

Shepard rubbed her head, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Too heavy to think about." She slid off the stone, and coming to her feet, rolled her shoulders. "I have to go check on where the Council is at on approving the next wave of relay building. I might need to send technical references."

The Catalyst nodded. Shepard turned to leave, then eyed the stone again, seeing figures carved in it's base. "The stone you requested...the one you had me sit on. Why is that important?"

The Catalyst smiled as it turned back to gaze out it's single window at the Presidium. "It is part of a carving from Ilthene, the capital of Ilthar, their home. That stone is 2 and a half billion years old. It is , perhaps, the last fragment to remind us that even gods were once mere fish in a sea." The Catalyst's voice fell silent, then with a note of amusement, spoke again. "It is a .. concrete reminder of irony, Shepard."

Shepard felt chill-bumps go up her spine as she considered the utterly ancient piece of rock, before she turned to exit the Spire, leaving the AI of the Reapers to it's endless contemplations.


	3. Chapter 3 : A day in the life

_A/N: So, part of this tale is kind of a follow on to what will be the ending of the Sheep and Battle Chicken ME 3 story. It's not really spoliery (hint: everyone survives. Except the goddamned Reapers) but if you absolutely don't want to know, just keep in mind that I won't spoil anything that really matters except that a) Harbinger gets fucking owned, b) the Relays are okay, c) Harbinger gets fucking owned, d) did I mention Harby getting owned? _

"Gauuhh!" Garrus tumbled to the ground, making exasperated noises, as the two tiny blue asari girls clambered over him. "Shepard, help! I'm being mugged!" The sound of children's laughter mingled with the groans of the turian as they danced around his now prone form. "Ride, Uncle Garrus! Ride!"

Shepard snorted in amusement, sipping her coffee, and shook her head, glancing over the broad bay window at the harbor beyond. Still choked with the remains of a Reaper, killed in the final confrontation, the harbor was a beehive of activity, cranes moving wreckage, and the forms of people milling about working on clearing the debris of war.

Intai'sei had not been hit as hard as some places in the war, but it had taken it's share of knocks. Somehow, the palatial home left to her by Admiral Ahern hadn't even been damaged in the fighting, and after years of war, dying, and calamity it felt good to merely sit around lazily, writing memoirs and watching her children.

"Shepard!" Garrus continued to flail in the main room, as Asiha and Liana took turns attempting to pin him to the ground, giggling as they did so. Shepard sipped her coffee again, scratching her head as she considered the datapad before her.

One of the things the Darkness had demanded in return for it's help was the moratorium on any real research of the science and technology that lead the High Ascended to their exalted, godlike ability to manipulate reality. Of course, researching Reaper tech was it's own bad ending – you ended up crazy or indoctrinated – but it still left problems. The Crucible had altered the energy state of the universe to the point where most of the more damaging things the High Ascended had done could never be replicated, but of course if the Crucible were rebuilt, the settings could be altered.

Shepard was making very sure no other plans of the Crucible existed, while drawing up her 'translations' of the science for her report to the Council that would be missing a few key inferences. She had no doubt that the Catalyst's sneering dismissal of this cycle's intellectual capacities was on point – none of the Citadel races had the brains to really understand higher dimensional physics. But the yahg could, and sooner or later they would get off Parnack and have to be dealt with.

She sighed, picking up a cigarette and lighting it, triggering the small barrier field to the study that trapped the smoke in the room and away from the kids, and turned to the data pad again. Pulling together a history of what had happened to lead to the Reapers in the first place was her personal project, one that was needed to figure out just exactly where the big aliens had first gone off the path from merely advancing through the technological singularity to messing with Things Not Meant To Be Fucked With.

She looked up as the barrier flickered and Garrus came through, running his talons over his fringe. "Thank the good spirits Ash rescued me, since _some people _can't control their children." Garrus sat, his angular features marred still from the blast he had taken to the face years ago on Omega, his visor now a pale maroon color. Dressed in black and gray clothes of turian cut, complete with a cut away vest, he looked thinner than he used to, more drawn and lean. He picked up the datapad to glance at it, mandible flickering. "Gah, this again? You're going to go crazy reading this crap, Sheep."

Shepard snorted at his pet name for her and finished her coffee. "Someone's got to sort this crap out, Garrus. Rebuilding the relays requires us to get pretty dangerously close to the limits of what we can and can't research , without figuring out things we probably shouldn't. It's great that the Council is finally bothering to listen to me, but we can't just keep tinkering with all of this new technology before we get a hand on where it could lead."

Garrus nodded. "I know, I know. Liara spends all her time in the labs … and can I point out that normal people don't build labs onto their home? Just saying. But you need to come up for air, Sara. It's _over_. We won, and against all odds most of us didn't die horrible deaths. We are the undisputed heavyweight badasses of all time. There's time to put this stuff in perspective."

Shepard smiled, pushing black hair out of her face. "Yeah, but it's interesting stuff. I mean, the reality of the situation is that the High Ascended probably got everything going in terms of life itself." She took back the data pad, scrolling down. "After they got off of their home world, and started colonizing, they spent hundreds of thousands of years exploring the galaxy. When they didn't find anyone out there, they started seeding worlds with life from their own planet. I wonder how many races are evolved from life that originated on Ilthar?" She sighed. "It gets you thinking...big thoughts. Crazy stuff. They thought they were gods, but how far wrong were they, really?"

She stood, stretching, and gave a little shrug as she stared out the window. "It took millions of years for life to catch up to them, and when it did they treated it like they did all other life. They dominated other intelligent species and used them like tools, to build and to create. They explored thousands upon thousands of galaxies, created a society that endured for millions of years, and had technology the likes of which makes everything we know look like rocks banging on other rocks." She rubbed her temples. "The .. scale of it all is just fucking...incomprehensible."

Garrus sat quietly, talons interlinked. "Yeah, it's..heavy.. too much to take in really. I just never got how the hell they got from the point where they were able to change the physical laws of the universe to cowering in a seabed dominating mining workers. It seems like a hell of a comedown."

Shepard shrugged. "From what the Catalyst told me, it was a long fight. Like...tens of thousands of years long. Whole goddamned species achieved civilization, fought all their lives as Ascended battle thralls, and died. The problem was the Ascended didn't even know what the Darkness really WAS, so they fought it instead of communicating with it or fleeing. Some of them tried to alter things to fight it, which just made it angrier – we know why now. Some tried to fight it conventionally. It was their government who created the Catalyst, and the Catalyst that laid out the plans for the Crucible and the Reapers."

Garrus tracked her with his eyes, scratching his fringe. "I get that part. But … so, if I follow the whole mess correctly, Catalyst was an AI supposed to manage the war. He figured out that the problem was the High Ascended running around mucking with reality, so he built giant war machines that were mimics of the High Ascended, each one built off of the remains of entire slave races. He pitched this as reinforcements to the High Ascended, and then when their numbers were low enough, killed them all off, or as many as he could."

Shepard nodded, and Garrus continued. "Then these first Reapers fled as far away as they could, stopping all of their reality-altering activities, and eventually coming here, and building the Relay Network and Citadel to power this dark energy screen that would hide minor disruptions of reality from being detected. They harvested races regularly, so they could build more of themselves, with the idea that when the time was right, they would rise up and overwhelm the Darkness."

Shepard nodded again. "Pretty much. Except , of course, Catalyst wanted to harvest races only at the point they started messing about with the wrong research, and the Reapers eventually got full of themselves and decided they should have the right to kill everyone just because they thought they were gods, rather than bother taking down the thing that was the threat. Pack of goddamned lunatics. I _knew _they were fucking crazy, but I didn't know how crazy until that conversation with Harby at the end there.

Garrus looked away. "Yeah.. what a mess. I mean, it's bad enough the Reapers are trying to kill everything and your super-weapon turns out to be a gun you can only hold to your own head, but then to have that fucker tell you that if you hadn't blown up the Collectors it might have been another 500 years before the Reapers attacked..."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah. Harby talked too damned much, and God it was satisfying when the Darkness just broke his ass in half like the little bitch he was. Just another pointy-faced asshat in a long, long line of pointy-faced asshats I've had to kill."

Garrus chuckled, and Shepard did too for a moment before her smile faded. "Still...it's important to understand why this mess happened, more for the history than for the intelligence it gives us. The High Ascended got cut like meat because they were stupid enough to think that manipulating others and playing with the nature of reality made them gods. The Reapers were smashed into paste because they thought that they were just the smartest goddamned thing since sliced bread, and they determined life or death for God knows how many people. The Catalyst's smart ass got locked down and sealed up because the Reapers preferred just lording it over everyone and blowing shit up rather than risk their lives , and all his smart ass plans came to nothing in the end."

She paused, watching as her children trundled back into the room with Ashley Williams , who was laughing as she turned on the vidlink. "The moral of the story, battle chicken, is that we need to keep in mind that hubris is fatal when it comes to technology of this magnitude. It's crazy what we have the capacity to do now, with the help of the Catalyst. Jumps without a mass relay, QEC links that you can create on the fly, picotech that can literally make you immortal, memory transcribers that allow organics to enter the geth consensus..."

Garrus frowned. "You worry we're going to end up like the High Ascended?"

Shepard gave a shrug, sitting back down. "Early 21st century science fiction was full of writers describing humanity's future once it hit technological singularity. Of course, they all imagined it was right around the corner, not realizing how little of physics we really understood, or how pitiful our grasp of computer technology was. Best estimates now for singularity is another two thousand years, or more, even with the Geth Overmind. But...Christ and Virgin, Garrus. That's a couple of generations of asari. It could happen before we – galactic society – are really ready."

She glanced at the far wall, at the painting done for her by the colonists of Horizon. "I just worry that all the sacrifices, deaths, and losses will be for nothing if we make the same kind of stupid mistakes the High Ascended did."

Garrus nodded, but then shrugged. "Honestly, I don't think we will. They were in a unique situation, one we aren't facing. They evolved with no other life, much less other intelligent life, and their outlook on everything was to dominate it. They thought themselves gods a long, long time before they actually took the steps to fiddle with reality, and that's why they did shit they shouldn't have. The kind of arrogance it takes to try to play with the laws of physics to make your own pocket universes just for the sake of stroking your own ego...spirits. No, I think we're … smaller than that. And for once, that's a good thing."

"Skip! Dinner's ready. Come and get it while I try to pry your wifey and my husband out of the damned lab." Ashley's voice was cheerful and light, unburdened by the things Shepard was thinking about, and she nodded. "Let's go, Garrus. Tonight you learn the wonders of science, as through picotechnology we've managed to alter the chirality of the most wondrous of human foods for your consumption: barbequed ribs."

Garrus groaned. "This better not end up like that last attempt. Whatever turn-up greens are, they taste _horrible." _


	4. Chapter 4 : A pause (Author's Note)

**Author's Note: **

_I've had a few people (in reviews and PM's) say they don't want to be spoiled by this story to what happens in my main fic. _

_As a result, this fic is going on hiatus. Don't worry, I will finish it once I get to a part where I can go into things without spoiling too much. Enough of it is up now that you can at least get the basic concept of how different my version of the Reapers are._

_The frustration I've had with how Bioware handled such an awesomely created set of beings as the Reapers and then Leviathan can't be overstated. The entire nature of the Reaper extinction comes from , quite literally, the Leviathans being too damned lazy to properly supervise their subject peoples, ending up making the same moronic mistake they invented the Catalyst to solve...I know Bioware loves handing people the Idiot Ball, but it's utterly and totally STUPID._

_As a result, I had to find a way to make the conflict more epic in nature. Grasping it is not hard, but really putting your mind about what it entails is, and is designed to be. _

_I will say this. I've put out certain facts thus far, which do spoil some things, but only the things that should be spoiled : namely, little blue children, a decent ending that doesn't require Deus Ex Machina, a Catalyst that is not stupid, and the complete and utter rejection of Bioware's so called artistic endings in favor something that allows the Mass Effect future to be a meaningful place to place fics in rather than whatever the hell Synthesis means._

_There are 5 more chapters in this fic, all of which, after looking at them, spoil way too much of the story of ME 2 and ME 3 to post. Keep this on your updates list, though, and once I get done with the other two , this one will have a biiiig five chapter update before you know it._

_Also, keep in mind, not everything in this fic is 100% accurate. Shepard is getting the information third hand. Some of it will (deliberately) clash with statements from Harbinger and the Reapers in the main fic._

_This is because the Reapers are (say it with Shepard) bat-shit insane. _

_**Any ideas you would like me to incorporate about the Reapers , I'd like to hear them! :D**_


End file.
